Yes — and Fig. 7.18 puts both sides in one frame. In the ‘Urban slums’ photograph, low houses roofed with tin and tarpaulin are packed along the water’s edge, and directly behind them, across the bay, stands a skyline of glass high-rises. The second photograph is taken inside such a settlement: a lane barely wide enough for one person, its floor wet and uneven, water pipes running along the wall — and a few potted plants on a windowsill, because it is somebody’s home.
The chapter defines them plainly: slums are overcrowded city settlements with poor housing and limited water, sanitation, and other municipal services. They grow near a city’s periphery, along railway tracks and in industrial areas where vacant land is available, and they exist in most countries worldwide.
The challenges people there face, read from the pictures and the text together:
| Challenge | What it means day to day |
|---|---|
| Housing | Small, crowded dwellings built of whatever is available, with little protection from heat, cold or heavy rain |
| Water | Limited supply. The ‘Water scarcity’ photograph in the same figure shows people filling drums from a tanker — which means the day is organised around when the tanker comes, and someone must be free to wait for it |
| Sanitation and drainage | Few toilets for many households, and lanes that hold standing water, as the second photograph shows |
| Health | Crowding, poor drainage and poor air quality together raise the risk of disease, and a day lost to illness is a day’s earnings lost |
| Insecurity of the site | Land beside railway tracks, drains or industrial units is unsafe and floods easily — but it is where vacant land was available |
| Schooling | Little quiet space or light to study in, and schooling interrupted if the family has to move |
And the other half of the picture, which the chapter states directly: slum dwellers support cities by performing informal work — vegetable vending, domestic help, laundry services, construction work, plumbing and more. The buildings on the far side of that photograph were raised by construction workers; the vegetables in the city’s kitchens were carried in by vendors. So the two sides in the frame are not separate cities. They are one city, and one of them is holding up the other.
What is being done. Improving housing, health and education infrastructure for them is described as a key urban challenge. Many government schemes try to address it, such as the Pradhan Mantri Aawaas Yojana, which provides affordable housing to economically weaker households.